Einherjar
by Heir of the void
Summary: A new type of war machine, developed by the United States Strategic Special Service, has been deployed to Toykyo-3. However, this mysterious new arrival raises many questions about the very nature of the Angel War, and new players in the battle to control Third Impact threaten to change everything. Can Nathaniel Oberon, Shinji Ikari, and the friends they make save the world?


_Fire. Screaming. Blood in the Darkness. Unrelenting pain._

Nathaniel Jefferson Oberon walked down the gantry leading to the detached control pod, helmet under his arm. The helmet was sky-blue, matching the dominant color of his flight suit, and the color of his eyes. A young woman in a lab coat walked next to him, carrying a clipboard under one arm.

"So this is it, huh?" Nathaniel asked, stopping in front of the door to the cockpit.

"This is it." The woman, Odessa Thomas, replied. "We don't have much time to lose so, if you please, get in the Comm-pod."

"So that's how it is, huh." Nathaniel said. "Shut up and get in the ballistic missile?"

Odessa rolled her eyes. "Basically. Now, do I have to call security?"

"That won't be necessary." Nathaniel said, turning to face the door to the cockpit.

The cockpit itself was a battleship grey sphere, more than ten feet in diameter, with a small hatch in the back, facing the catwalk. Nathaniel took three steps up the staircase, then began to pull himself into the Comm-pod.

Lights flickered on as he entered, and as he pulled himself into the center of the pod, the command chair began to assemble around him, various components extending from their retracted positions and locking into place around his body.

Controls and displays activated as the command chair reached full deployment. Nathaniel reached forward and gripped the pair of control yokes in front of him. They we're really necessary, as the Knight would be impossible to command using physical controls. The only method of operating the machine was the neural interface built into Nathaniel's flight suit. It would allow him to move his Knight as if it were his own body.

It was pretty cool.

Nathaniel activated his intercom. "I'm in position. Powering up field systems."

There was a brief pause. "Roger that. CIC acknowledges. Prepare for liftoff, K-one."

[x]

"The pilot is in position." One of the bridge technicians said.

"All systems report green." Another called.

"Insert the cockpit and begin launch sequence." Steven Lee said. His epaulettes marked him as a Brigadier General, and his decorations, from the Combat Infantryman's Badge to the Silver Star, declared him to be a soldier of some renown. One badge, an image of of a sword on a book surrounded by a silver flame with gold traceries, marked him as something special.

"Propulsion is clear." A bridge technician said. "Exhaust evacuation tunnels are open."

"Rocket is switching to internal power."

"Pilot is initiating field projection."

"Mass is declining."

"Igniting main engines."

General Lee closed his eyes. "Launch." He muttered.

[x]

In a large field in the foothills of the Wyoming Rockies, a large complex of barns exploded. Carefully placed charges shredded the balsa wood beams, and blew the pieces clear of the massive hatch that began to iris open, a rumbling sound issuing from below.

All together, the tops of eight grain silos that formed an evenly-spaced octagon around the barn blew off, and massive jets of superheated gas began shooting out of the revealed nozzles.

A second later, the hatch was fully open, and the nose cone of a massive rocket emerged. It moved slowly at first, but it gained speed rapidly as it emerged from the silo. The second its base was clear, it began to nose over, turning ever so slightly toward the west as it continued to climb.

[x]

"We've got to be able to do something!" Misato Katsuragi shouted, looking at the assembled team of scientists and engineers in the NERV HQ Conference Room #3. "We can't just still here and let Ramiel breach the Geofront!"

"Shinji is just coming out of surgical recovery." Ritsuko replied. "And Unit 00 is only a prototype. What options do we have?"

Shigeru looked up from his laptop. "The Americans say they're sending help. I think there's something wrong, though. They're not saying what it is, and the delivery method is listed as 'ballistic missile.'"

"But nothing the American Branch has is combat ready." One of the scientists said. "Unit 03 is still weeks from completion."

"Not the American Branch." Shigeru said. "The U.S. Federal Government."

"Nothing they have could scratch an Angel." Someone else said. "And it would take hours to get here."

"Not if they really are sending it by ICBM." Misato muttered. "But what could fit in the bus of a missile that would make a difference? We have our own N2 mines..."

The door to the conference room burst open, and Maya burst in. "We're registering a massive rocket signature rising from North America!" She exclaimed. "Ballistic projections indicate it is inbound for Tokyo-3!"

"How big?" Misato demanded.

Maya shrugged. "Around five million kilograms. It's running some pretty heavy EMC."

"ETA?"

"Sixty minutes." Maya said. "I think that-"

"I'm getting something." Shigeru said. "It's a file transfer one something called a Knight."

"What is it?" Misato demanded. "And what could it do here?"

"I don't know." Shigeru said. "But apparently it can fly."

"Well, whatever it is, we have to be ready to support it." Misato said. "What's the status on that prototype positron cannon?"

[x]

Nathaniel floated. He was not in actual microgravity, of course, his trajectory was too low and too fast for that. Nonetheless, aside from the occasional rocket burn to stabilize the path of the capsule containing his machine, it was peaceful. Serene. There had been too little of that over the past twelve months, and it had taken a year of brutal training for him to realize the value of that.

He looked at his monitor, down at the blood-red sea below him. It was a dead place now, like much of the Earth. Second Impact had seen to that. It had killed more than half of all humans on the planet, driven an equal proportion of species extinct, and even scared the moon.

Now, the Angels were coming to finish the job. He hadn't been told why, but it was apparently imperative that Tokyo-3 be held against the Angels. It had been drilled into him that, should he need to sacrifice his life to destroy one of the monsters, it was his duty to do so without hesitation.

NERV had created the Evangelions from Angel DNA to fight the monsters. However, somewhere along the way, someone decided that they wouldn't be enough. Nathaniel didn't know who or when, but he knew that the end result of that decision was the Knight, the war machine he was currently piloting.

He looked at the readout for his weapons. Particle Lance, missile batteries, hyperedge sword, point defense guns... all green to go. The Angels were equipped with a... something called an Absolute Territory, or AT Field, which rendered them immune to most conventional attacks... somehow. No one had ever bothered to explain the mechanics to him.

All he knew was that there were only three ways through an AT Field. One was a massive focused discharge of energy, which could have some effect on an AT-shielded angel. Second was to neutralize the AT Field with a second AT Field, like what NERV's Evangelion units did.

The third method was through the use of a K-Type, or Knight. The Knight was equipped with a series of field emitters that allowed its weapons to punch through an AT Field and hurt the angel within. Again, no one had explained the mechanics to him, but the technicians had assured him that his weapons would penetrate an AT Field like an icepick through cardboard.

Nathaniel wished he shared their confidence.

With his neural interface, Nathaniel redirected his display upwards, to look at the stars, carefully avoiding the scared moon. He wished he could be out there, among the stars, free of… Everything.

He wished he were anywhere but where he was.

A slight buzz of static filled his ears. "Nathaniel?" Odessa asked, static slightly obscuring her voice. "You're five minutes out. You're going to be re-entering atmosphere soon, so make sure your fields are up and get ready for that."

Nathaniel glanced at his shield readout and mentally 'flicked' each layer of his defensive energy array from 'standby' to 'armed'.

'The Japanese are preparing something to support you once you reach Tokyo-3." Odessa said. "They won't say what it is, but I wouldn't count on anything. This Angel already soundly defeated an Evangelion once."

"Got it." Nathaniel muttered. "What are my odds?"

"Come again?"

"What are my odds of winning this fight, or at least surviving?"

"Fifty-fifty." Odessa said. "Either you win or you don't. Two possible outcomes."

Nathaniel smiled slightly. "I don't think it works like that."

"Alright. But we have no idea. There are too many unknowns. Just do you best and remember you training."

The pod began to shake.

"You're entering atmosphere." Odessa said. "I won't be able to communicate until you reach the ground. Godspeed."

Nathaniel opened his mouth to respond, but the line went dead. 'REENTRY-COMMS BLOCKED' appeared on his main screen in large red and black letters, and the monitors all went black.

The shaking intensified.

Nathaniel called up a virtual plot of his course and watched as the green dot representing him inched along, trailing a red line behind it. Minutes passed, and Nathaniel grew glad for his restraints as the vibrations grew worse and worse. Then, with one almighty jolt, they ceased, and Nathaniel's monitors came back online. He was several miles above the Ocean outside Tokyo-3, and as his displays zoomed in on the city, he spotted a massive blue octahedron floating above it.

Nathaniel grabbed his control yokes and pressed a button to unfold the Knight from transport configuration into flight mode.

[x]

In the mobile command center established for the operation in the mountains outside the city, Misato watched as the missile reentered the atmosphere and shed its heat shield. Now, she could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

She watched on a magnified display as a humanoid in the fetal position dropped out of the bus of the missile. It slowly stood up while in freefall, arms and legs extending. Its arms and upper legs were large and bulky, covered in segmented armor. Its lower legs were long spike-like affairs, extending from a flared cone just below the knees.

One arm held a long spear that unfolded from a compact position, and the other a long sword. Wings extended from the back of the machine, the middle of three pairs extending at nearly as long as the machine's arms.

The whole machine was colored sky-blue, highlighted in silver. As she watched, a large hollow circle on the sternum of the machine light up bright red, and the eyes of the machine flashed gold. The computer estimated the height of the machine at forty-eight meters from head to toe. Small compared to an Evangelion, but still massive.

As the machine fell, blueish light began to emanate from the underside of the cones at the top of the machine's upper legs, and from somewhere on its back. It came to a halt in midair, then leaned forward and began flying toward Tokyo-3.

"Prepare to deploy the Evangelion Units and prepare for firing attempt." Misato commanded. "I want to-"

"Belay that." Came the voice of Commander Ikari over the intercom. "Let this machine take the first shot, then deploy the Eva units while the Angel's focus is elsewhere."

"But..." Misato looked down and frowned. There was no way something so small could survive a blast from Ramiel's beam cannon. "Yes, Commander." 

"The unknown object is entering the Angel's firing radius." Shigeru said.

"The Angel's internal energy is increasing." Maya announced.

As the object entered Ramiel's firing radius, the Angel twisted and deformed, shifting into two smaller octahedrons above and below a tiny red core. An instant later, a massive blue beam of energy flashed out from the space in front of the Angel's core and shot toward the flying Knight.

The Knight jinked to the side as the beam fired, something small detaching from its wing. It jerked downwards, and two additional small object detached from its other wing.

"It's firing missiles at the Angel!" Makato announced.

The Angel's beam jinked to the side, destroying the first missile in a, relatively speaking, tiny explosion as the Knight flew up and away to the side. However, the second and third missiles continued down the beam. The Angel's beam tracked upwards at the last second to engage the missiles, but they split off from each other.

Ramiel's beam paused for an instant, as if hesitating, then began to move to the side, but it was too late. The missiles flew past the monster's beam and struck its upper octahedron, showering its core with blood as they penetrated and detonated.

The beam flickered and died.

"The Angel's Internal Torus Reactor has been disrupted!" Maya shouted.

"Launch the Evangelions!" Misato commanded, slamming her fist into the table. Prepare to fire!"

[x]

Nathaniel watched as the missiles struck the Angel's upper body and its beam stopped.

"Particle Lance." Nathaniel muttered. He extended his left arm, the one holding the spear, and pointed the tip of the weapon at the angel. "Reactor status nominal. Commencing firing."

Glowing red lines traced their ways down the spear away from his hand, and the air around the tip of the weapon began to glow blurry.

Nathaniel pulled the trigger.

A jet of white light shot out from the tip of the spear as the particle lance fired. It crossed the space between him and the Angel in a flash, then struck the creature's AT Field. A lance of pain shot through Nathaniel's head as it impacted, and he winched.

The beam exploded like a firework against the wall of tessellated hexagons that appeared in the air, splitting into several streamers. Many of them bounced away from the Angel like balls thrown at a wall, but a few of them continued forward and punched into the Angel's upper Octahedron.

Cracks ran across the surface of the Angel the Particle Lance had struck, and the surface turned from blue to grey around the impact sites.

The pain in his head vanished, and Nathaniel looked back toward the Angel.

"Target is changing forms." The soft, feminine voice of the Knight's onboard computer said.

The Angel warped, folding a bit like paper. A second later, it had taken the shape of eight cubes floating in a ring around the red core, facing the Knight. It began to rotate in midair to track the flying machine.

Seconds later, short, discrete blasts of energy began firing towards the Knight. A warning tone filled Nathaniel's cockpit, and he accelerated forward and began to dodge wildly.

[x]

Light filled the Eva's panoramic displays as Evangelion Unit 01 breached the surface.

"Alright, Shinji," Misato said, her face appearing in a small window at the bottom of the screen, "We might only have one chance at this, so be careful. You have to deploy the Positron Cannon and shoot out the Angel's core. Rei has the heat shield in case the Angel decides to shoot at us, but our guest seems to have made that a moot point."

"Who is he?" Shinji asked. "Why can't he fight the Angel?"

"We don't know, and because he doesn't have the firepower to take it down." Misato said. "We do. So go get 'em."

"Alright." Shinji muttered. "Deploying Positron Cannon."

The Eva's right shoulder fin opened, revealing a massive gun. It began to rise above the Eva's head, then slowly tilt forward. Shinji raised his hands and grabbed the massive rifle as it descended, guiding it into a firing position against his Eva's shoulder.

He took a step forward, power cables connecting to the base of the Positron Cannon unravelling from spools as walked. On his monitors, a targeting screen appears, showing the Angel, now in eight parts, firing blast after blast at the flying machine.

"Who are you?" Shinji whispered, as he moved the crosshair of the targeting display over the core of the Angel.

The system had already compensated for all relevant factors on his display; all Shinji needed to do was line up the shot. As he watched, a positron blast struck the flying machine, exploding in a burst of blue light. An instant later, the machine flew out. Shinji couldn't tell if it was damaged.

"You have to take the shot, Shinji." Misato said.

"Okay." Shinji said. He centered the crosshair over the core of the Angel and pulled the trigger.

A beam of white shot out from the Positron Cannon, shot across the Bay, and struck the Angel in the core. The angel seemed to _snap_ back it its original shape. The pilot of the flying machine wasted no time. He turned to face the Angel and fired a barrage of missiles. The struck the creature's AT Field in sequence. The first few were blocked, but the missiles toward the rear of the flight penetrated and struck the Angel.

They plunged into the tissue of the creature, then exploded, sending geysers of blood shooting out of the holes punched in the Angel.

"Why can he do that?" Shinji asked. "That's not an Evangelion. How can he fight the Angel?"

"We don't have all the answers right now." Misato said. "But we'll get them soon. Now, you have to change the fuses on the Positron Cannon."

"Right." Shinji said. He pressed the button to eject the fuses, reached down to his legs to retrieve new ones, then went to work.

[x]

Nathaniel watched as the Positron beam struck the core of the Angel and failed to penetrate. His shields had taken a beating from the Angel's relentless attacks, and some energy had even leaked through, but his armor, bolstered by his Structural Integrity Field, was intact.

The angel had returned to its octahedron form, and seemed to be considering its next action. Nathaniel turned to face the monster, armed his missiles, and opened fire. He spun to the side as the missiles shot toward the Angel and impacted, then shot upwards.

A beeping noise sounded in Nathaniel's headset, and a window opened in the bottom corner of his display monitor showing a purple-haired woman in a red military uniform.

"This is Captain Katsuragi to unidentified Knight Pilot." She said. "What are you doing in NERV airspace?"

"I'm trying to help." Nathaniel said, leveling his spear and firing a blast from his Particle Lance. 'Which it looks like you need. Do me a favor and take out this Angel, would you? I'm not sure how much longer I can keep this up."

Nathaniel grimaced as a burst of pain shot through his head as the Particle Lane impacted.

"Fine." Captain Katsuragi said. "But we're going to have a long conversation when all this is over."

As she spoke, the Angel began to change again, returning to its eight-part anti-aircraft from. A second later, it began to fire blasts of energy at Nathaniel. The first one connected, but splashed against his shields, and he quickly began evasive maneuvers to prevent a repeat performance.

"I'll see what I can do." Captain Katsuragi said quickly.

"Thanks." Nathaniel said.

[x]

"I don't understand." Ritsuko muttered, looking at the readouts. "Nothing without an AT Field should be able to move like that, let alone hurt an Angel. What _is_ that thing?"

"I don't know, Rits." Misato said. "But I have a lot of questions for whoever built that thing."

"What makes you think you'll get any answers?" Ritsuko asked.

"I have my ways." Misato said. "What's the status of the replacement fuses on the Positron Cannon?"

"I've almost got it." Shinji said over the intercom. "I've just got to... got it. I'm getting ready to fire again."

[x]

Rei watched a display window at the bottom of her panoramic display showing the view from Shinji's Eva as he moved the crosshair of the Positron Cannon. She stood ready behind a mountain peak with the heat shield, ready to step out from behind cover and shield Shinji, should the Angel turn its attention away from the strange flying machine.

Idly, she wondered what it was and how it could fight the Angels. She had been told that the Americans had built it, but she had been given no information that even suggested that they might possess technology that could harm the angels, let alone fight them.

Yet, as the strange machine fired a burst from its particle weapon that stuck the Angel in the core, she realized that was clearly the case. She wondered if Commander Ikari had not known about this, or if he had known and decided not to tell her.

The crosshairs on Shinji's screen crossed over the core of the Angel and stopped. It waited there for a second, then the screen went white with the discharge from the Positron Cannon firing.

[x]

Nathaniel watched as a second ray of white light reached out from the mountain where the Evas had set up their sniping perch and touched the Angel.

It struck the creature in the core, and a scream filled the air, faithfully relayed to his cockpit via the Environmental Data Transfer System. The Angel seemed to _snap_ back to its original from, which it retained for a second.

Then it exploded in an eruption of blood, covering a good position of the center of Tokyo-3 in Angel fluid and crystal shards.

Nathaniel stopped dodged and returned his Knight to hover mode, floating over the bay between the Evas and the city.

The window displaying the purple-haired woman appeared on his monitor again.

"Now that we've dealt with that mess." The woman said, "You can start by telling me who you are and what you are doing here."

"I am Nathaniel Oberon, representing the United States Strategic Special Service." Nathaniel said, exactly as he had rehearsed. "I have been deployed in order to render assistance in defeated the Angels. I require an opportunity to land and effect repairs to damages suffered in this battled, so if you would be so kind as to-"

"Hold it right here." The woman said. "We have some questions for you, and you're not landing until you answer them. We still have a fully operational air defense grid, and you don't register as having an AT Field, so-"

"I get it." Nathaniel said. "And neither of us want me to trash your air defense grid."

The woman blinked. "Okay. So how can you fight the Angels."

"Field Projectors." Nathaniel said. "I don't understand it either, so don't ask."

"Alright." The woman frowned, then looked off screen and nodded. "Why didn't your organization inform us about the existence of your Knight?"

"I'm just a foot soldier. I'm not party to every strategic decision." Nathaniel answered. "I have a secure communication device in my cockpit. If you let me land, you can use it."

"Fine." The woman said. "I'm Misato Katsuragi, by the way. Thanks for your help out there. You can land over by where we have the Evas set up; there's some clear space you can use."

"Thank you." Nathaniel said.

[x]

Shinji, who had disembarked from his Eva and changed back to his street clothes in a field decontamination shower, looked over at the landed machine, which he had learned was called a Knight.

It was in a kneeling position, the flared cones below its knees folded away to allow it to assume the stance. Several black scorches marred the sky-blue plate of its exterior, and its sword and spear, while not deployed, were clearly visible.

He looked over at Rei, who was walking out of the Field Shower, dressed in her characteristic school uniform. He turned and began walking toward Rei, glancing around at the encampment as he did so. He spotted a boy, make a little older than he was, wearing what looked like an armored plug suit the same color as the Knight, talking to several technicians. Every few seconds, the boy glanced over at the kneeling Knight.

Shinji reached Rei and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Hey Rei." He said. "I think I found the guy piloting the Knight. Want to go talk to him?"

Rei tilted her head to the side. "Sure." She said.

The pair began walking toward the Knight Pilot, Shinji trying to push through the crowds for Rei, with mixed results.

Eventually, they reached the spot where the pilot was. He was speaking to the Bridge Personnel, gesturing with one arm and holding his helmet under the other.

"...And it's powered by a Mk. 11 field-enhanced fusion cell." The Knight Pilot said, pointing at the chest of the Knight. "That gives it the power to say in the air, along with what it needs to power the weapons."

"And what was that particle beam it was using?" Shigeru said. "What was that?"

"The Particle Lance?" The Pilot asked. "It uses the energy field to accelerate energized particles at massive velocity. It's a pretty cool weapons system."

"Um, high." Shinji said, walking up to the Pilot and holding out a hand. "I'm Shinji Ikari."

"Hi." Rei deadpanned.

"Hi." The Knight Pilot said. "I'm Nathaniel Oberon. You must be the one who took out the Angel." He made a gun with his fingers and closed one eye. "Nice shooting."

"Thanks." Shinji said. "How did you know?"

"They told me." Nathaniel said. "So the Evas are a biomechanical system, huh?"

"Yeah." Shinji said.

"They must be pretty tough fighters." Nathaniel said. "What's it like piloting them?"

"You know." Shinji said. "It is. What about piloting the Knight?"

"It's not quite like anything else in the world." Nathaniel said. "Except for the headaches, it's pretty cool."

"Headaches?" Shinji asked.

"Yeah, you get them sometimes when you're flying the thing." Nathaniel said. "They don't usually last very long, but they can be pretty painful."

Misato appeared from behind the Knight and walked over to the group.

"Good news." She said. "Nathaniel, your Strategic Services is sending in an advanced support element by airlift from Guam. They should be here in a few hours. They have a full support division coming in by cargo ship from Honolulu. I've talked with your supervising officer, and it looks like your being forward deployed here for the foreseeable future!"

Nathaniel froze for a moment. "You know I don't even speak Japanese, right?" He said, after a few seconds.

"That's fine." Misato said, waving her hand. "Everyone at NERV speaks English, and since Impact, so do most Japanese citizens. You should be fine."

"Fine." Nathaniel said. "Accepting that for a moment, what about defending the United States?"

"The Angels only attack here." Misato said. "We're reasonably certain of that."

She paused for a moment, then continued, voice low. "Besides, apparently there are more of these Knights back in Wyoming."

Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "There are?"

"You mean you didn't know?" Misato said. "Anyway, until we can get more permanent lodgings worked out, it looks like you'll be staying at my place!"

[x]

General Lee put down the phone. He had just been talking with the Commander of the Japanese operation that had created the Evangelions. It had been a very roundabout conversation, with no shortage of veiled threats. The U.S. might not be the Hegemon it once was, but it still had the most effective nuclear and N2 arsenal in the world, and the second largest conventional army.

Still, the Evas were the wild card in all of those calculations. While they were nearly invulnerable to conventional weapons, it would, at least in theory, be fairly easy to destroy the umbilicals and massive supporting infrastructure they required, limiting the harm they could cause.

Theoretically.

If one went berserk, all bets were off.

In any case, the Knight was, per dollar spent, _probably_ a more effective weapons system.

Then again, that was probably because it had been built from the ground up as a weapon. The Evangelions, if his intel was to be believed, we intended as something else entirely.

General Lee stood up and began walking toward the door of his room. The pieces were in motion, and the die had been cast. Now, it was only a question of how they would land.

Lee walked out the door of his office, turning to salute the pair of uniformed Special Services guards at the door. He walked down the hallway, repeating the process at two further guard posts, until he came to an elevator. He pressed a button, which scanned his finger and called the elevator on priority.

The door opened a second later, and General Lee boarded. He waved his Strategic Services ring over a scanner built into the wall, then reached up to his neck and pulled out an old-fashioned key on a chain and inserted it into a keyhole on the elevator control panel.

A tone sounded, and General Lee pressed a specific pattern of floor buttons, then pressed 'DOOR CLOSE'. The door closed, and the elevator began to descend.

It opened, and General Lee walked out into a long hallway. The floor number plate on the wall next to the elevator doors were blank.

General Lee spent more than a minute walking down the hallway, which gradually sloped downwards, until he came to another elevator at the end. He drew his pocket knife, pricked his finger, and then held it over a scanner until a drop of blood fell.

The scanner flashed green, and the elevator doors opened. General Lee entered, taking a Band-Aid from the box on the wall and wrapping it around his finger.

The elevator descended for nearly a minute more, then the doors opened. General Lee stepped out, into a dimly lit chamber.

There was a faint green cast to the light shining in the room, which danced in strange patterns across the unhewn stone walls of the chamber. The floor of the cavern was rough, and the ceiling was higher than the light reached.

General Lee walked across the room, toward the source of the light. It was a thirty-foot stone pillar in the center of the room, shaped like a sword thrust skywards, with a flat, rounded face pointing toward the elevator.

The face pointing toward the elevator was covered in strange, green patterns, almost like some kind of geometric hieroglyphics, which pulsed with an unearthly light. Every few seconds, they pulsed brightened, then faded as new patterns appeared.

It was the Enigma, and it was the heart of everything the United States Strategic Special Service did.

Slowly, General Lee stepped forward the placed his palm against the surface of the obelisk.


End file.
